he was better than nixon. and he was better than ford. so you could argue, except for president reagan, governor reagan then, it was, in fact, the strongest republican debate performance in the history of televised debates. the other thing that i find so interesting -- and joe, i wonder what you think about this -- is this was not a tea party message. one of the reasons perhaps governor romney did so well is that this might actually be the real governor romney at last. >> yep. >> and it was a very -- people could take me on on this, i would argue that was a mainstream conservative message that could have been largely unchanged except for the tales from 1980 forward. and that is something that's very different. it is, in fact, i think, effective among -- could be effective among undecideds. this is not romney playing to any base. this was a conservative mainstream message. this is the conservative vision of the country. the details will work out. he basically said that. you know, we'll work it out. he offered a couple of options. i think p